'Girl You Left Behind' follows a painting through time

Published 1:09 pm, Thursday, September 5, 2013

British novelist JoJo Moyes will be launching her U.S. book tour for "The Girl You Left Behind" at the Greenwich Library on Wednesday, September 11 at 7 p.m.

British novelist JoJo Moyes will be launching her U.S. book tour for "The Girl You Left Behind" at the Greenwich Library on Wednesday, September 11 at 7 p.m.

Photo: Contributed Photo

Image 2 of 4

The lives of two women who live 100 years apart are brought together in the new novel "The Girl You Left Behind" by JoJo Moyes, which deals with the model for a painting made just before World War I and the widow who owns it a century later. The author will be at the Greenwich Library on Wednesday, September 11. less

The lives of two women who live 100 years apart are brought together in the new novel "The Girl You Left Behind" by JoJo Moyes, which deals with the model for a painting made just before World War I and the ... more

Photo: Contributed Photo

Image 3 of 4

British author JoJo Moyes is launching the U.S. book tour for "The Girl You Left Behind" at the Greenwich Library on Wednesday, September 11 at 7 p.m.

British author JoJo Moyes is launching the U.S. book tour for "The Girl You Left Behind" at the Greenwich Library on Wednesday, September 11 at 7 p.m.

Photo: Contributed Photo

Image 4 of 4

An unlikely connection is made between an artist's model just before World War I and a widow 100 years later in "The Girl You Left Behind," the new novel by JoJo Moyes. The British writer will be launching her U.S. book tour at the Greenwich Library on Wednesday, September 11. less

An unlikely connection is made between an artist's model just before World War I and a widow 100 years later in "The Girl You Left Behind," the new novel by JoJo Moyes. The British writer will be launching her ... more

Photo: Contributed Photo

'Girl You Left Behind' follows a painting through time

1 / 4

Back to Gallery

The impact of a gorgeous painting of the woman who posed for it in the early 20th century, and the woman who has come to own it 100 years later, is the subject of the new novel by JoJo Moyes, "The Girl You Left Behind" (Viking, $27.95).

In a story that carries echoes of the Oscar-winning film "The Red Violin," we get to see the long and varied "life" that is lived by an art object as it passes through people's hands over the course of a century.

The model, Sophie Lefevre, hangs the painting in the cafe she runs in a small French village to remind herself of the man who created it, her artist-husband, who is off on the frontlines of World War I.

Liv Halston is the contemporary London widow who also prizes the painting as a reminder of her husband, an architect who died suddenly after they saved the piece from going out in someone's trash.

"The Girl You Left Behind" contrasts the harrowing life in a French village occupied by Germans during "The Great War" with a legal battle in 21st-century London that erupts when Liv has to fight to keep the painting in a lawsuit that charges Lefevre's work was stolen by the Germans after the war.

Moyes juggles the two plot lines deftly, keeping us in suspense about the outcome of the parallel narratives -- and their heroines -- until the final pages of the novel.

The British writer will be launching her U.S. book tour with an event at the Greenwich Library on Wednesday, Sept. 11.

In a recent phone interview from her home in England, Moyes said she has been interested in the idea of paintings lost or stolen in wartime since she was an arts reporter in the early 1990s.

"The issue of restitution was gaining ground then," she said of the return of art confiscated by the Germans during both world wars. "It seemed that it should have been clear-cut, but it wasn't. A painting is never just a painting. It can represent power and ownership."

Moyes is prized by her readers for never writing to a formula, but she said the new novel was "a nightmare to write because it is such a huge, sprawling book. It was a hard one to keep hold of," Moyes added of the parallel narratives, separated by 100 years. "The structure of it was changed 15 times."

As the painting called "The Girl You Left Behind" travels through time, there are periods when it is prized greatly, and others when it almost lands on a scrap heap.

Moyes has always been fascinated by the divergence of people's opinions on art and other things. "To some people the painting is worthless. To others it's worth giving up a life for."

While early readers and reviewers have been praising the novel, some have suggested that the whole book could have been given over to Sophie's story of survival in the war-torn French village.

It's a vivid and disturbing look back at World War I. We see how hunger, distrust of the German overseers and suspicions of women using their sexuality for favors from the enemy turn old friends (and even relatives) against each other.

"When you have people subjugated, who are hungry all the time, rumor and suspicion grow, especially in such a strange, insular existence. Everything I read about the war said that in situations like this one, people began to mistrust each other," Moyes said. "I've never written historical (stories) before and I was worried that I could not get into (the characters') psyches. But it was by far the easiest part to write because I had so much fun picturing the town and the people."

Best-selling thriller writer Nelson DeMille will make a rare Connecticut appearance at the Westport Library, 20 Jessup Road, on Thursday, Sept. 19, at 7:30 p.m. DeMille's book tours are infrequent and short, so fans of the author of "The Gold Coast" and "The Charm School" will want to save this date.

The Long Island, N.Y., writer's latest book is "The Quest," which the publisher says takes readers "from the locked archives of the Vatican to the overgrown jungles of Ethiopia (in) a deadly search for the Holy Grail."

Books will be available for purchase at the event and seating is on a first-come basis, starting at 6 p.m., and any "saved" seats must be relinquished by 7:20 p.m. Call 203-291-4800 or visit www.westportlibrary.org.